Charlie McCreevy says we must take risks

European commissioner for internal market and services gives Reform Scotland spring lecture at Edinburgh Business School

Charlie McCreevy, the European commissioner for internal market and services, has urged European finance ministers not to pander to populism in their response to the financial and banking crisis.

In a speech at Edinburgh University Business School last week, McCreevy warned that a heavy-handed regulatory response would handicap European financial institutions and be disastrous for European economies. He said that a crowd-pleasing tightening of regulation would squeeze out risk-taking and "condemn us to lacklustre growth and high levels of unemployment".

McCreevy acknowledged that there was a desire to "regulate risk out of the system" being powered by "very strong political undercurrents", and he said these undercurrents would probably intensify after European parliamentary elections next month.

Kildare-born McCreevy, giving the spring lecture of Reform Scotland, the think-tank, denied allegations that he was a "free-market Taliban", adding that he had long believed "that Europe would not be able to regulate itself out